Checkatrade appoints Jambu Palaniappan as Chief Executive Officer

Checkatrade is pleased to announce the appointment of Jambu Palaniappan to the role of Chief Executive Officer. Jambu will take up his position in September.

Jambu brings a deep breadth of experience growing direct to consumer technology and digital platform businesses, both as an investor and a senior industry executive at Uber.

He joins Checkatrade having served as Managing Partner and Head of Europe at OMERS Ventures since November 2019, where he led the Canadian pension fund’s investment into high-growth technology companies such as Deliverect, ultimate.ai, Clarisights and Fonoa. From 2016 to 2018, he was Head of Uber Eats in EMEA, building and scaling that business from its inception. Prior to that, he held several executive positions at Uber, playing an important role in its growth in EMEA and India. Jambu is a Non-Executive Director and member of the Supervisory Board of JustEat Takeaway.

He will take over from Mike Fairman, who leaves the business after five successful years.

Richard Harpin, Chairman of Checkatrade, said:

“We are delighted to announce the appointment of Jambu as CEO of Checkatrade. The business is going from strength to strength and it’s clear he has the right leadership style, skills, and experience to cement and grow Checkatrade’s position as the leading marketplace for homeowners across the country to find, hire, and rate tradespeople. I would like to thank Mike for his dedication and outstanding contribution as CEO over the last five years.”

Jambu Palaniappan said:

“I am very excited to be joining Checkatrade, the leading place to find quality tradespeople online. The home services market is very large but still early in its digital journey, providing us a great opportunity to drive growth and market share. The team here are hugely impressive and I look forward to working with them to build on existing successes and capture Checkatrade’s enormous potential.”